The Hardest Question Jesus Ever Asked | Book of John | Week 5

He shames every idol He reigns without rhyme though He goes by the name of Jehovah, Jehovah He speaks into nothing And darkness goes running He goes by the name of Jehovah, Jehovah Call the name, call the name, call the name Jehovah All our praise, all our praise, all our praise belongs to Him Belongs to Him His foes will be silenced He's fighting for Zion There's no other God like Jehovah, Jehovah His arms never tire His eyes are like fire There's no other God like Jehovah, Jehovah Call the name, call the name, call the name Jehovah All our praise, all our praise, all our praise belongs to Him Call the name, call the name, call the name Jehovah All our praise, all our praise, all our praise belongs to Him Jehovah, Rabbah, heal your body Jehovah, Shalom, build your peace Jehovah, Nitzan, fight your battle Jehovah, Shalom, meet your need Jehovah, Rabbah, heal your body Jehovah, Shalom, build your peace Jehovah, Nitzan, fight your battle Jehovah, Shalom, meet your need Jehovah, Rabbah, heal your body Jehovah, Shalom, build your peace Jehovah, Nitzan, fight your battle

Jehovah, Shalom, meet your need Jehovah, Rabbah, heal your body Jehovah, Shalom, build your peace Call the name, call the name, call the name Jehovah All our praise, all our praise, all our praise belongs to Him Call the name, call the name, call the name Jehovah All our praise, all our praise, all our praise belongs to Him Jehovah Nisi Batchubad Jehovah Jaromitunim Jehovah Rav Vaheerubad Jehovah Shalomitunim Jehovah Nisi Batchubad Jehovah Jaromitunim Jehovah Is anybody grateful that we have a God that we can call on in our time of need? I love the part of that song where it says that our God that he that he reigns and what we just sung is a reminder not just of who we are but who God is and and we're reminded that when we face any difficult circumstance in our life that we can come to him and that we can trust him and that's what allows us to be here this morning to worship him amen amen if you're new here my name is Stephen I'm the campus pastor here we're so glad that you're here and the easiest way for you to get connected with this amazing group of people is that you can text the word next 808-57 you'll receive a few messages of scripture hope and encouragement this week and before you head out today we want you to know again that if you're new we have created a place in the lobby just for you we would love to meet you answer any questions that you have and myself and a number of our staff will be out there after service we'd love to say hello we also want to take a moment just to celebrate what God did this weekend through she is ladies let's make some noise how was she is it was awesome we had over 4,000 women that were gathered here at our Lafayette campus

and online it was so encouraging to see women worship together lean into God's Word and to experience community together and we don't want what God did this weekend to be a one-time event and so if you're new here or again you're a lady you're looking to get connected we've created a space out in our lobby this weekend and we would love for you to meet with some of our women's ministry leaders if you're interested in deeper discipleship community or a place to serve we would love to meet you outside in the lobby to help you to take a next step I want to give a very very special shout out to all of our volunteers who serve behind the scenes to make that event happen and I want to give a very very special shout out to all of our men who are perhaps kind of carrying a little bit of extra load this weekend while your wives and your daughters were here as she is over the last couple days I had all five of my sons for the last couple of days 24 hours a day seven days a week yesterday one of my sons woke up and said are we going to eat today and so they were very very happy that their mom was able to be as she is but they were also very very happy that she came home yesterday afternoon amen church out it is so good to be together in the midst of all the things that we experience in our world it is so awesome that we get to come together and to remind ourselves of what's true I want to encourage us right now as we continue to sing one of my favorite songs all hail King Jesus let's sing together when the lights were now death it claimed its victory the king of love had given up his life the darkest day in history they're all on a cross they made for sinners for every curse is but a tome one final breath and it was finished but not the end we could have known for the earth began to say and the veil was torn what sacrifice was made

as the heavens roared Oh ♪ Jesus, all hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus, all hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world, yeah ♪ ♪ He's the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ There was a moment when the lights lit up ♪ ♪ A flash of light breaking through, yeah ♪ ♪ When I was lost, He crossed eternity, oh ♪ ♪ The King of life was on the move, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, in the dark, He'll come through ♪ ♪ Come where our Lord was laid ♪ ♪ One more rocket blast, yeah ♪ ♪ And we're forever changed ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus, all hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus, all hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ Amen, Jesus, all hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus, all hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ Oh, He's the Savior of the world, yeah ♪ ♪ So let every knee come out before the King of kings ♪ ♪ Before the King of kings, and every tongue confess that He is Lord ♪ ♪ Lift up your shout, let us join the chorus, sing it out ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ We cry out, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Singing, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You are holy ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus ♪

♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail King Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world ♪ Deuteronomy 31 verse 8 says, it is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. So come on church, let's be encouraged this morning. Let's let our faith rise up this morning as we worship the God who is with us and the God who goes before us. Why don't we sing? ♪ Time and time again, we've asked if you were able ♪ ♪ Time and time again, you've proved ♪ ♪ You're the God of our salvation ♪ ♪ And you're worthy of our praises ♪ ♪ And time and time again, we worship you ♪ ♪ Oh, anyone with eyes can see a mountain ♪ ♪ But anyone with faith can see it move ♪ Oh, Elohim, the God who goes before me, Prince of Peace, my heart has found a home. You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. There's no end to who you are, and there's no limit to your hope. Oh, there's no end to your hope. Merciful and true, the God of every virtue, solid rock we're standing on. Oh, you're holy and you're kind, the epitome of life. So we magnify the worthy one. Yeah, we magnify the worthy one. So we sing, Elohim, the God who goes before me, Prince of Peace, my heart has found a home. You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

There's no end to who you are, and there's no limit to your hope. There's no limit to your hope. Oh, Elohim, the God who goes before me, Prince of Peace, my heart has found a home. Oh, Elohim, the God who goes before me, Prince of Peace, my heart has found a home. No one is higher, God, our provider, Prince of Peace. There's good beyond measure, worthy forever, Elohim. No one is higher, God, our provider, Prince of Peace. There's good beyond measure, worthy forever, Elohim. No one is higher, God, our provider, Prince of Peace. There's good beyond measure, worthy forever. So we sing, Elohim, the God who goes before me, Prince of Peace, my heart has found a home. You're the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. There's no end to who you are, and there's no limit to your hope. Oh, yes, Jesus. Now, let's just stay in this moment, and I was down here praying and thinking and just wondering if there's somebody, there are people in the room, where you got a diagnosis you're facing, and you're like, man, I just need God to provide in this, or maybe you got some financial things that are going on, and you're going, I don't know how we're gonna pay the bills. We got money for this week, but we don't have money for the next week, or maybe you got a big decision to make. And you need to know that God has gone before you, and he's the God that provides. And I just, we're gonna pray in a second. I just wanna ask, would you boldly and courageously raise your hand if that's you right now in this moment? You're like, I'm waiting on God to provide right now. And here's what I wanna ask. I'm gonna pray for us, but keep your hands up. If you got your hands up, if you don't have your hands up, look at the people who with their hands up right now. I just ask that you'd extend a hand in their direction,

because collectively, what we're gonna do as a church and as a family is we're gonna pray for those that need God to show up. And so if you just extend a hand in their direction, I'm gonna pray for us. God, right now, God, we are in need. are claiming the promise where God, you said you're the God who provides. You didn't even just say, hey, I provide. You said, I'm Elohim, that's one of my names. That's what I do, I provide. And so in the face of the diagnosis, in the face of the death, in the face of the prodigal that we're just praying comes home, God, in the face of the decisions that we're making where our future depends on what happens in the next few weeks, God, in the face of all of that, we call on Elohim, the God who provides. And God, we've got faith that you've gone before us. God, you have gone before us, which means just like, we just wait till we can get to the place where our dad's at, God, that there's gonna be a day in the future where we see what you've been doing. God, we see how you provided because God, you're already there. God, you've gone before us. You are paving the way for what you're going to do. And so God, we trust you. God, we thank you. And in this moment, we pray to you in your son's Jesus name, amen. Flat Earners, so glad that you guys are with us today.

Why don't you take a second, say hi to those next to you, and then we'll take a seat. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey, so you can open up to John chapter five if you've got your Bibles, or if you've got your notebooks on page 56, we've got what we're gonna be reading through in today's sermon. So these books, these notebooks, we provided these for free, and we've got some more out in the lobby if you need them. They've got places for notes from the sermon in them, but also, and I wanna point this out again for us,

we've got daily reading that you can do on your own. And if you're going, Jesse, I've not read the Bible before, so I don't really know how to read the Bible on my own. It doesn't make sense to me. I can't understand it. We've got notes in there. We've got explanations. We've got questions that you can ask. And I know what's happened to a lot of us. Maybe you started this at the beginning of the year, but I know, because this is what happened for me. We got busy, we had a work trip, we skipped a couple days, and then we missed a week, and so now we're just avoiding it, and we put it up on a shelf, and we're just like, okay, I just don't wanna look at it because I feel guilty about not keeping up with it. And I just wanna encourage you, if that's you, get the notebook off the shelf. Don't worry about making up the days that you missed. And see if this week we can string together five days of reading the Bible on our own. Because here's what we wanna be. We wanna be a church that knows how to handle and submit to the Word of God. But to do that, that's never gonna happen if we're only reading the Bible in church every couple weeks. That's why we gotta practice reading the Bible on our own.

Because when we read this book, it is gonna change us. If you're in the room, you're like, I don't even really believe in all this yet. I wanna challenge you. You read the Bible, and the perspective from this book is gonna change you. But man, if you take the Word of God, you combine it with the power of the Spirit of God, and the guarantee inside this book is you will see life transformation. God says it like this. He says, for the Word of God, it's living and it's active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, any sword that you could imagine. It pierces the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It discerns the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. So God's Word is living and it's active. It's gonna speak to your soul. It's gonna speak to your spirit. And it cuts through all the BS, it cuts through all the excuses. It holds a mirror up to what's going on inside of us most of the time. But most of the time, we don't really notice it until it shows up close to home. Let me give you an example of this. Does anybody in the room have kids? Just raise your hand if you got kids. They might be grown, they might be younger.

So one of the things I didn't expect about parenting is how much it exposes you. Because in a lot of ways, and you probably experienced this, kids are just mirroring what they see in their parents. So in my 20s, I was a great parent because I had opinions, I had theories, I had confidence, and then I had actual kids. And all of that fell by the wayside. So our four kids, they're teenagers and pre-teens. And lately, my son, Gray, he's a teenager. He's picked up this phrase. He goes, I hear you. So I tell him to take out the trash, I hear you. Buddy, time to go to, I hear you. Get off the streets, I hear you. And the thing is, he does it every time. Like every time, he does what we ask him to do, but at the same time, it just bothers me. It's like, I hear you, and I'm like, that's not good enough, okay? I don't need an I hear you. I need, yes, sir, maybe? Got it? Dad, you are so right. I'm not only gonna get off screens, I'm gonna clear off the counters as well, okay? And all I'm getting is an I hear you. Then the other day, I'm on the phone and I'm replying to a message and my youngest said to me for the third time,

hey, dad, can you come look at this? You know what I say? I hear you, and I go do it. But my wife, Kara, she says, Jesse, you've been saying this for months. And so here I am just getting so frustrated that Gray's doing it, because I think it's his problem, but actually it's a reflection of my problem. He's just been mirroring what he's seen in me. So in the same way, the Bible is a mirror. It's gonna show us some things in ourselves that we would rather ignore. It might show us some things we wanna cover up. It's gonna show us some things we just wanna blame on others. And the Bible just cuts through it all. So the story that we're reading today in John 5 is one of those moments where the Bible holds up the mirror and it doesn't look away. And so we're gonna get into it in John 5, verse one, if you wanna read along in your book or in the Bible. We got free Bibles in the back and it'll also be up here on the screens. Chapter five, verse one. So after this, there was a feast of the Jews. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

And I just wanna point this out to you real quick. The reason that John is giving all of this detail is he's trying to help cue us in on something that this is a real place that really happened. This is not made up, this is not a fairy tale. He's trying to say, hey, you guys have been to the place and you remember the columns, you remember the pool, you remember where it is. He's given us specific details. And then he says this. In these areas lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. So setting the stage, Jesus is walking up to this huge group of people and they're blind, they're lame, they're paralyzed, and they're all huddled in this same area. So I want you to picture all of these people together. And here's the thing. People back then, they had this belief. Any suffering in your life was the result of sin in your life. So you have all these people huddled together. And that belief was common back then, but it was wrong. Suffering doesn't automatically mean that somebody sinned. Suffering does not mean that you deserve it. But imagine this place, all these people, various illnesses and ailments, they're all huddled in the same place for years. Now, why do they hang out in the same place?

That's what it explains in verse four. So in your Bible, look at verse four. And you might be realizing, if you've got your Bible or your book, there is no verse four. It's not there. Why is that? Here's what scholars believe happened. They believe that one of the scribes who's copying the manuscript of the book of John, back then they didn't have printing, they didn't have anything like that, and so a scribe would copy the manuscript by hand and then the next scribe would do the same thing. They believe that one of these scribes just made a note in the margins to explain, hey, here's what they were believing, here's why they were all hanging out there. They believed that there's this angel that would stir the water and the first person who made it into the water would be healed. So he makes that note off to the margin. Just the same way you would make a note in your Bible, he writes the explanation. But then the next scribe who gets that manuscript, he just thinks that's part of the text and so he copies it into the text. And that's what's continued for decades. Now, I know what some of us are thinking right now.

Jesse, if that part of the Bible's missing, does that mean that other parts of the Bible are missing? Or they're made up? Or they're unreliable? And the answer is actually the opposite. Now, this is an apologetic moment for us, okay, because I just want you to know why you can trust this book. We have thousands of manuscripts of this book from different times, different places, but many that go just a couple years after the first copy was written. There are more copies of the Bible in history than any other historical document. And so when something different shows up, where they're like, oh, these don't match up, scholars don't hide it. Instead, they flag it just like they did in here. So what we don't have, we don't have this book that's been quietly edited behind the scenes, trying to hide stuff from us. Instead, this has been carefully preserved, openly examined, and the fact that we even notice something like this should increase our confidence, not decrease it. So that's what verse four would have said. Verse five, it continues. It says, one man who was there had been an invalid for 30 years. 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, knew he had already been there a long time,

he said to him, do you wanna be healed? Now that's an odd question to ask somebody who, this person hasn't been able to walk for 38 years, asking them, do they wanna get better? I mean, of course he wants to get better, right? But let's go back a verse, because this man has been labeled. He's been called an invalid. You'll never walk, you'll never fit in, you'll never be whole, you're an invalid. And I wonder if what's true for him is actually true for us, that people labeled us to limit us. And they said things like this, maybe when we were younger, maybe just recently, you're just not good at school, you're never gonna be good at school. You're just the difficult one. Why can't you be like your siblings? You're just the difficult one. Yeah, we don't think you're leadership material. And for many of us, we took on that label as an identity, and we started believing it. So I want you to think about this man. He's been sitting there waiting for 38 years, which is longer than Jesus has even been alive. And at this point, Jesus is walking around, he's got the reputation already that people know he's able to heal. Anytime Jesus comes in a new town, he gets run off,

he's gotta go off by himself because people are just swarming him asking to be healed. And so Jesus the healer is at the pool, and this guy doesn't even ask for healing. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why he just sits there while the healer's right in front of him. But I wonder if he had been labeled for so long that he started to believe it. And then you live that way too long, you become hopeless. And we just settled and we've resigned ourselves to the fact that it's just always gonna be this way. We're always gonna have the addiction, always gonna hate the job, always gonna struggle in the marriage, we're always gonna be in debt, we're always gonna be lonely. And if we can't imagine life being different than it is, now the question from Jesus actually makes sense. Do you actually wanna get well? Or maybe you've settled so far into your label that you don't actually wanna be free. Now look at his response in verse seven. The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water's stirred up. While I'm going down, another one steps down before me. You know what the man could have said? Yes.

Yeah, I wanna be healed. Like I prayed to God that I'd be healed. I've hoped that I'd be healed. I have waited for 38 years to be healed. Yes, I wanna be healed. But instead he makes an excuse. It's not my fault. I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. Nobody's gonna help me. When the water gets stirred up, somebody else, they always get there first and I'll never be able to get there. So I can't be healed. Before we judge him for that belief that an angel has to stir the water for healing to happen, I just wanna invite us to look in the mirror because some of you guys believe in essential oils, okay? And... Who knows, okay? The reality is that he believed it and it was his inner narrative. And I think about it, that we've all got our own version of that. There are these outside forces that are keeping us, we're convinced they're keeping us stuck. Well, if my parents would have just raised me differently, they would have been better. Then I wouldn't be struggling with this. I wouldn't be struggling with this. If my wife would just do what she's supposed to do,

then I wouldn't have this problem. If my kids would just do what I tell them to do, I wouldn't be angry all the time. And these feel like good reasons. I got mine, you got yours. There are all these excuses for why things are the way that they are and why we turned out the way we turned out. It's not my fault. Nobody gave me the job. I'm not the one to blame. It's not my fault. Nobody gave me the job. Nobody put me in the right school. Nobody would date me. Nobody gave me an opportunity. And you've seen this. Our world loves that story. We celebrate that story. But what happens is we end up living our lives making excuses when. healing and restoration are standing right in front of us. And we're actually gonna stop here for a little bit because this is the crux of the passage. This is the crux of the story. The man that Jesus met was locked up in a victim mindset that was keeping him stuck, trapped, and hopeless that things could get better. And I'm not gonna bury the lead, okay? Here's where we're going today.

Jesus did not save you from your sins so that you could be a victim to your circumstances. Now, before we go any further, okay, I gotta say a couple important things. First of all, some of us in this room have actually been victimized, okay? Not metaphorically, not emotionally exaggerated. You were hurt in real ways by real people. And sometimes, sometimes by the people you trusted, sometimes by the ones that said, I will love you forever. I just want you to know, what happened to you was wrong. It wasn't your fault. And nothing in the Bible minimizes that. And I'm sorry. Some of us, we've had everything go against us professionally. You've done the work, you've shown up. You've been faithful, and the doors still closed. The promotions didn't come. The layoffs happened, opportunities dried up. And you've been carrying the weight of this quietly for a long time. I am sorry that you're carrying that. And some of us in the room, we have carried, we've just lived some incredibly difficult lives. Chronic illness, anxiety, depression, this pain that won't go away. And these are conditions you didn't choose, you can't power through. I want you to know, I'm sorry.

I want you to know, your illness is not brokenness. The fact that you're still standing, the fact that you're still showing up, you're still trusting God at all, that is the strongest faith in the room. I don't know how some of us do it, okay? And I respect you so much for what you've lived through and what you've endured, and you're living proof of what the Scripture says when it says, hey, when I am weak, he is strong. That's what you are living proof of. And I think that's the difference in that Scripture between resignation and acceptance. Now hang with me here. Resignation is this, it's looking at our circumstances with bitterness, and so we just give up. Acceptance is different, acceptance looks like this. It's looking at our circumstances with openness, and we're giving God the opportunity to show up. Acceptance is not denial, it's not giving up, but it is surrender to a God who is still at work. And here's why that matters. I want you to hear this from one of your pastors who loves you, who wants good for you. Some of us, we've taken an incident and we've made it an identity. And the thing that happened to us has now become the identity that directs every single direction and decision of our lives. And our issue becomes our identity.

So whatever problem we had in the past, whatever way that we felt different, whatever mental health struggle we had, whatever label we got, and we've all got these issues, but the problem is when we make our issue our identity. Please hear this. When my issue is my identity, then I don't have to take responsibility. You might already have somebody else in mind, we got somebody else in mind. Hey, this person's always playing the victim, they need to hear this, I'm gonna send this to them, okay? Before we look at anybody else, I just wanna invite us, let's first look in the mirror before we look at anybody else. I remember the moment that I fell flat on my face. And I embarrassed myself in, I remember not even wanting to go in the house to talk with my wife about it because I was so ashamed. And the people that told me I wasn't good enough, I probably wouldn't get another chance, that I was an invalid. And you know what my first instinct was to do? I wanted to find somebody else to tell. Maybe you've been there. I wanted somebody else to hear my side of the story so that everybody would feel sorry for me because they give me a pass because of what they did to me. They're on my side, they're the bad guy.

so that I could be the victim and they would be the villain and everybody would be on my side. It was so easy. Because it is way easier today to be the victim. When you're the victim, everybody will feel sorry for you. When you're the victim, everybody's gonna make allowances for you. When you're the victim, people will even cut you a check. And our culture is training us to see ourselves as perpetual victims. Where even the smallest infraction is seen as attack or abuse or oppression. I remember how a leader pointed this out to me. He just said, hey, think about the last argument that you've had with your spouse. That's hard to do because Kara and I never argue, okay? Like, I'm just kidding. She'll be here next hour, so she won't laugh at that. But arguing used to be about right or wrong. But in the last 20 years, it's become about who's the victim and who's the villain. And the first person to the victim wins. I'll say it another way. You used to win an argument by being the person who was right. And today you win the argument by being the person who was wronged the most. I mean, think about it. Think about your last argument with your spouse or your partner.

How often do they come down to, well, you never, well, I always, well, all of this, all of this happened to me. And our culture is slanted to make us feel like victims. Why would culture do that? They make us feel like victims so that they can be our saviors. Marketers want you to see yourself as a victim so that they can sell you salvation to your problems. We're gonna save you from the skin that you hate. We're gonna save you from your weight. We're gonna save you from feeling stressed. The government, the government wants you to see yourself as a victim so that they can be your savior. They promise if you just get the right education, if you just got the right regulations, if you just got the right leaders, then hey, we will save you and we will build a government installed heaven right here on earth. We can save you. But it goes even deeper than that. And I want you to hang with me on this for a minute. In our culture, people are so quick to see themselves as victims because they've rejected the idea that they're sinners. So we don't like the idea that we're guilty or that we fall short. But the only problem with that,

with rejecting that is this, the only thing that deals with guilt is forgiveness and real forgiveness only comes through Jesus. So even when people reject sin and guilt as categories, they say, okay, I'm not a sinful person. I'm not a guilty person. They actually can't escape that feeling. We just don't call it guilt or sin anymore in culture. It shows up like this. And maybe you've heard your friends say this. Maybe you felt this. It feels like, hey, I just don't feel like I'm enough. I feel like I never measure up. I just feel like there's something off inside of me. What that is, there's this quiet sense of unworthiness that settles deep inside of our souls. That's what the Bible would call sin and guilt. We just call feeling not enough. And here's what happens. When somebody takes on the identity of the victim, it actually gives temporary relief. Because if I'm the victim, then I'm not responsible. If I'm the victim, this is not my fault. Victims aren't responsible for their condition because there is always somebody else to blame. When I didn't do anything wrong, something happened to me. Somebody else caused this. Now again, to be clear, and I wanna be real clear on this, there are real victims who have been genuinely wronged and had nothing to do with what happened to them.

And that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about when somebody adopts a victim mentality so they don't have to deal with the subconscious, guilt or responsibility that they feel inside. Here's the problem. The victim identity feels safer than repentance, but it never leads to freedom. And then for some of us, and this might be you, you're like, I don't play the victim. We don't play the victim. Instead, we find a victim to save because if you're the one who saves, then you don't need a savior. We're all trying to justify ourselves through playing the victim, finding the victim. Instead of admitting that we're not victims who need helping, we are sinners who need saving. Most of us, we don't choose the victim's story, but we drift into it because we're carrying something that's just too. hard and too heavy to carry alone. And so I just wanna give us some real tangible, I wanna make this tangible for us. I wanna give us some diagnostics of maybe we're drifting into a victim mentality. So I got some diagnostic questions for us. The first one is this, it goes like this. How often do I find myself blaming something else? Somebody else is always the problem, or the system, or the timing, or the person.

Every single time, it's always something else. And again, those things might be very real, but responsibility never shows up. Even in the situations that we share, there's no space for, well, here's my part. In our marriage ministry, Re-Engage, they've got this saying, it's called Stay in Your Circle. How many in the room have been through Re-Engage? Just a show of hands, just probably a few of us, couple dozen of us. So stay in your circle. They get what I'm saying. So what they say is, when you're discussing things, you draw a circle around you, and you draw a circle around your spouse, and we're talking about the issues in your marriage, you stay in your circle. This is way harder to do than you think that it is, because they might ask, hey, why do you have communication issues in your marriage? And you're like, right, if you just knew, stay in your circle. Why do you have money issues? Well, if she wouldn't just spend all of our money, we wouldn't have these money. No, you stay in your circle. Before you blame anybody else, you stay in your circle. You see what you can own. But so often, we just wanna blame others. Here's the second diagnostic question.

How often do I use the word just to describe myself? I'm just tired. I'm just not an on-time person. I'm just an anxious person. I'm just an angry person. I'll be real, those things are probably honest. But when claiming it becomes the end of the conversation, it becomes the end of growth. And your language has become the limitation to your growth, because you think you're just a blank, and it gives you a pass. Your language has become the limitation to your growth. Here's the third diagnostic question. How often do I feel entitled? You know what this is like. After all I've done, and after all I've been through, I shouldn't have to deal with this. And we can drift in and out of entitlement. But man, the moment life starts to owe you something, what happens, we stop choosing our response, and we just start waiting for payback. And every single thing that goes against us, it's just another drop in the bucket on how life has just treated us unfairly. And I gotta tell you my heart for this. Why this is so important to me is because I have seen incredible people settle for diminished lives because they were content to play the victim rather than to take ownership for their lives.

And I've lived seasons of my life just pointing the finger at other people. I wouldn't be looking at that stuff if she was doing what she's supposed to do. I wouldn't be drinking this much, but the reason I'm stressed is because they're being like that, that's why I'm drinking. And anything after the but is the excuse that's holding us back. And a victim mentality is, my therapist, he said it's like dirty fuel. It'll still run the engine for a while, but it comes at a cost. It feels good at first. It helps explain why we are where we are, why we aren't where we wanna be. It brings some relief, but eventually it stops giving anything to us and it starts taking away from us. And four things happen when you live in a victim mentality too long. You give away your agency. You start to live with resentment. You believe you'll always be stuck and then your faith slowly starts to shrink. You give away your agency. When you see yourself as a victim, you slowly hand over your ability to choose to people and to circumstances that you can't control. You just give over control to somebody else.

And then when that happens, we start to live with resentment and we just keep this list of every person, everything that wronged us. And that list, it explains things for a while, but instead of moving us forward instead, it just helps tether us backwards. We just stay tied to the past and tied to things we can't change anymore. And then we start to believe that we will always be stuck. be stuck. Over time, you stop asking, hey, what's next? You just start assuming this is as good as it gets. And then our faith slowly starts to shrink. Instead of trusting God for what could be, we start managing life around what feels safe and what feels predictable. Here's the last thing. If you live in the victim mentality too long, eventually you become the villain. Because hurt people hurt people. And I was hurt, and I was hurt, and I'm hurting, and now I'm starting to hurt others, whether on purpose or on accident. And guys, I've lived this. I've started believing other people were in control of my life, not me. I grew bitter to the people who hurt me. I replayed what they did, and I ignored all of my responses to it,

but I could sure tell you what they said about me, what they did, and all I could think about was the wrong that fell on me. And little by little, I stopped dreaming, and I stopped hoping, and I stopped trusting God that he had bigger plans for me, that he had better plans for me. And eventually, I started dragging the faith of the people around me down too. Maybe you've been there too. Victim thinking starts to narrow what you believe is possible. And our faith doesn't disappear, it just gets smaller. And our expectations, they get lower. We're just bracing for the impact of disappointment. And we start to manage what is rather than trust God for what could be, and our cage shrinks, and our faith shrinks, and then we just start living small lives that fit inside that cage. Now let me give you an example of this. So about five years ago, I was having these major headaches. So I go to the doctor, and they run all these tests, and they put me in all the machines, they do all these things, and then they tell me, they figured it out, I've got visual diplopia. That means one eye looks up, one eye looks down. That means I'm cross-eyed,

but they don't tell you that anymore because they don't want to hurt your feelings, okay? So they call it diplopia. And they tell me, hey, you're gonna be in glasses for the rest of your life. And so, never had glasses before, so I go to the store, and I get these glasses, and I go home to show the kids, and my daughter, she says, hey, those are nice, but do they make them for men? And like, she's, you're eight years old, you're too young to be making this joke. They said non-binary on the package, okay, so. I thought about cutting that after Saturday night, but I just kept it in there for you guys, so we might cut that for the 11, that might be the Saturday and Sunday special. They told me, hey, you'll need to wear these glasses for the rest of your life. From that day forward, I was a glass wearer. And so I stopped asking questions. I stopped thinking anything different. But then I met a new doctor. And he asked me about my glasses, and I told him about it. He said, hey, we can fix this in about 15 minutes. So in a couple weeks, I'm gonna have a surgery that fixes my vision. Now, get this, nothing changed about my eyes. The only thing that changed was what I thought was possible. Victim mentality doesn't just kill faith all at once,

it slowly lowers the ceiling till we can't see what's possible anymore. Again, Jesus did not save us from our sins so that we could be victims to our circumstances. So all the way back to the man in this story, Jesus asks him if he wants to get well, and the man gives him an excuse why he isn't well yet. He gives him the excuse, and then look what happens in verse eight. Verse eight says this. Jesus said to him, get up, take up your bed, and walk. That's what Jesus does. He challenges us to do something that we can't do without him. Some of us, we got things that God's put on our hearts, some things that he's telling us to do, and what we're thinking is, I can't do that. That will never happen for me. I could never do that, I can't. And let me be real clear with you right here. If God is telling you to do something, and your response is, I can't, your response isn't actually I can't, it's God, you can't. Because if God's calling you to do something, and your response, that's actually just, I can't. The response is, I can't. God is giving you reasons to just do something, Then what you're really saying is you don't believe that he can. and you don't hear what God's telling you.

We gotta be careful. Don't let a limiting belief about yourself You don't entertain that God wants you to do something. turn into a limiting belief about God. Verse nine says, at once the man was healed. He took up his bed and he walked. Out of dozens of people with these illnesses and limitations, just imagine Jesus is walking through, and he's having to walk over sick people. He walks over all of these sick people, all of these people who haven't walked for years, who can't see, and he goes to just one of them. And he heals only one person. This is very non-PC of Jesus, okay? Bloggers would have a field day with Jesus on this, okay? I don't know why Jesus doesn't heal them all. I don't know why he heals some people's cancer and he didn't heal my dad's. I don't know why one friend can get pregnant and the other friend can't. I mean, it is the first question I'm gonna ask God when I get to heaven, and I don't think we're ever gonna understand on this side of heaven. But be careful for people who claim to give you a formula that A plus B equals you'll be healed. Do this and you'll be healed. Give this and you'll be healed. You just gotta get to the pool first and then you'll be healed. Pray the right prayer, pray it the right way,

and that kind of formula is not found in the Bible. But the story in John, it's not actually about healing. That's not the main point. This story is less about healing and more about what keeps people stuck even when Jesus is standing right in front of them. So what's keeping you stuck? Because Jesus wants to help with that. And here's the thing about freedom. When you start to change, don't expect everybody in your life to accept it. Because some people like the old you. They like the you that made excuses, the version that saddled, the version that didn't expect anything to change. And they like that version of you because it gave them permission to stay stuck too. And this man, if you keep on reading, the first people that he runs into, they don't celebrate him, they interrogate him. Why? It's because he doesn't fit into their box anymore. He's doing things that they said couldn't happen. But look at how Jesus responds. We'll skip down to verse 17. But Jesus answered them, my father, he's still working until right up until now. And guess what? I'm still working too. My father's working and I'm working.

And that line matters because the man on the mat believed it would never happen. Religion said that it could never happen. And Jesus says, I don't care that you don't believe it could happen. I don't care if you say it can't happen because when my father's working, it can always happen. And if the father's still working, your marriage can still heal. If the father's still working, your finances can still recover. If the father's still working, there is still hope that that prodigal comes home. And if the father's still working, your illness does not have the final word. If the father's still working, you are not finished yet. But just because we can't see God moving right now does not mean that he's not working. Just because it's taken longer than we wanted it to doesn't mean that God stopped. If the father is still working, then you are not finished yet. And here's why I'm so passionate about this, okay? It is because we've got an enemy who wants to keep you on your mat. He wants to keep you convinced that God could never use you, he would never choose you, he will never work through you, that you don't have the pedigree to do it, you don't have the personality to do it, you don't have any agreement number to do it,

that you're too broken, you're too late. The enemy is an accuser who's gonna point his finger, tell you lies, keep you small. He's gonna do whatever he can do to keep you on your mat. But the healer is right in front of you. Jesus doesn't accuse, Jesus commands. He says, hey, it's time to get up. It's time to take your issue, to take your label, to take up your mat, and it's time to walk together. And scripture backs that up over and over again. Here's some truths from the Bible. from Scripture that apply to you right now, whether you believe them or not. Scripture says that you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. Not some things, not a couple things, not select things. You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. It says that God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. He has not given you a spirit of fear. That is from the enemy. He's given you a spirit of power. It says the same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in you, that the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead is able to work in your lives in ways that you right now feel are impossible. And then the Bible says that you are more than a conqueror through him who loves you. That means that your circumstances tried to make you a victim,

but he says, you're not a victim. You are more than a conqueror. And those circumstances that were wrong, those circumstances that hurt, I'm actually gonna use those circumstances to become your servants, to help turn you into the person that I have created you to be. That's what scripture says about you. And I was gonna say, scripture never describes you as stuck, never describes you as helpless, never describes you as powerless. But actually that's not true. Because when the Bible describes us on our own, before Jesus came into the picture, it said we were all those things. Romans 5 says, hey, it's true. We were stuck and we were helpless and we were powerless. But while we were powerless, Christ died for the ungodly and he stepped in. When we had nothing to offer, when we were sitting by the pool with no options, he who knew no sin chose to be the victim of our sin so that we could live in the freedom of his grace. He took up the cross so that you could take up your mat. And whatever mat you've been lying on, whether fear or shame or addiction or resignation, the healer is standing right in front of you. And Jesus is saying the same thing that he's always said.

He's saying, get up, pick up your mat and walk. And in just a second, we're gonna sing a song about speaking the name of Jesus over everything in our lives, over our doubt, over our bitterness, over our anger, over our failure, whatever it is. And for a lot of us, the honest truth is we look at our mat and we just cannot see those things ever changing. And I think about that man. He hasn't walked for 38 years. He'd stopped praying for healing a long time ago. And Jesus tells him to do the thing that he hasn't been able to do for 38 years. And he's thinking, I can't do that, it's impossible. I've been an absent father for decades. I'll never be a good dad, it's impossible. I have been out of work for so long, no opportunity. I will never get back on my feet again. This marriage, it's been broken for years. It's just the way that it is, it can't change. And on your own, you're probably right. But the healer is standing right in front of you. When the healer's in the room, anything is possible. And so today, in this moment, the healer is here and we're gonna take a moment, we're gonna take our mat, we're gonna put it in front of Jesus and we're gonna speak his name over it. And so Flatirons, let's stand together at all of our campuses, let's sing

and let's let Jesus do what only he can do. So right now, Jesus, we take all of the things that we feel like are limiting us, we take all of our beliefs about ourselves, God, we take those labels that those kids told us when we were in second grade. And in the name of Jesus, we say those labels do not apply to us anymore. Our identity comes from who you say that we are. And so God, we surrender our mat to you. God, we surrender our lives to you. And we wanna speak the name of Jesus over every issue in our lives, over every mat in our lives, over our families, over anything that's holding us back. And it's in the name of Jesus that we sing and we worship and we pray, amen. Amen. Yes. Yes. Yes. I just wanna speak the name of Jesus over every heart and every mind cause I know there is peace within your presence I speak Jesus I just wanna speak the name of Jesus till every dark addiction starts to break We're gonna sing it together. ♪ Declaring there is hope and there's freedom ♪ ♪ I speak Jesus ♪

Come on. ♪ Cause your name is power ♪ ♪ Your name is healing ♪ ♪ Your name is love ♪ ♪ Break every struggle, shine through the shadows ♪ ♪ Burn like fire ♪ ♪ I just wanna speak the name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Over fear and all anxiety, yeah ♪ ♪ To every soul outcasted by depression ♪ ♪ I speak Jesus, oh ♪ ♪ Cause your name is power ♪ ♪ Your name is healing ♪ ♪ Your name is love ♪ ♪ Break every struggle, shine through the shadows ♪ ♪ Burn like a fire ♪ Oh, we call your name. ♪ Your name is power ♪ ♪ Your name is healing ♪ ♪ Your name is love ♪ ♪ Break every struggle, shine through the shadows ♪ ♪ Burn like a fire ♪ Come on, every voice, we'll lift it up. ♪ Shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets ♪ ♪ Jesus in the darkness over every enemy ♪ ♪ Jesus for my family, I speak the holy name, Jesus, oh ♪ ♪ Shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets ♪ ♪ Jesus in the darkness over every enemy ♪ ♪ Jesus for my family, I speak the holy name, Jesus, oh ♪ ♪ Your name is power, your name is healing ♪ ♪ Your name is love everlasting ♪

♪ Break every struggle, shine through the shadows ♪ ♪ Burn like a fire ♪ ♪ Your name is power, your name is healing ♪ ♪ Your name is love ♪ ♪ Break every struggle, shine through the shadows ♪ ♪ Burn like a fire ♪ ♪ Shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets ♪ ♪ Jesus in the darkness over every enemy ♪ ♪ Jesus for my family, I speak the holy name, Jesus, oh ♪ ♪ Shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets ♪ ♪ Jesus in the darkness over every enemy ♪ ♪ Jesus for my family, I speak the holy name, Jesus, oh ♪ So good to be together this weekend. Hey, if you want some prayer today, we have a prayer team down front. They would love to pray with you before you leave. Guys, have a great rest of your Sunday. See you guys next weekend. ♪♪♪